All posts tagged jennifer lawrence

Chris Pratt is brought out of suspended animation by a computer error. There’re still 90 years to go before his ship will arrive at the new colony. There’s no way for him to re-enter suspended animation (the first contrived plot point). Of the 5000 passengers on the ship, he’s the only one who’s awake. A year goes by and he’s all but suicidal. He’s ‘saved’ by falling in love with one of the sleeping passengers (the comely Jennifer Lawrence, who’s left video diaries which he’s watched over and over again). No longer able to resist, he brings her out of suspended animation, robbing her of her future on the new colony. It’s an interesting moral dilemma that he’s been wrestling with, and he can’t bring himself to tell her that he’s responsible for her waking up (rather than it being down to a computer glitch). A romance blossoms between them, only for her then to discover the truth. The fallout is believable – Pratt and Lawrence work well enough together on-screen.

But then the plot starts to intrude once more. A crew member of the ship is awoken by accident – and he explains a lot of plot for us (including, yet again, the impossibility of re-entering suspended animation – almost as if the movie is so embarrassed by it that it overdoes its explanation). The original computer error has now become a mission critical cascade failure. The engine needs to be flushed and rebooted, but the door is jammed (an even more ridiculous plot point, given how hyper advanced the technology of the ship is). Needless to say, Chris and Jennifer rush around and scream a lot… and save the day. Phew. They then live happily ever after (albeit only with each other for company).

Look, the good things about this film are the SFX, the moral and existential issues and some of the acting. It’s such a shame the film didn’t confine itself to a deeper study of such things, really. It’s such a shame that Hollywood feels a need to insert a hackneyed, well-worn set of things that they label plot. A missed opportunity, but an interesting one. Scores 7 out of 10 from me.